


Second Chance

by ellydash



Category: Vertigo (1958)
Genre: F/M, Porn Battle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-23
Updated: 2010-07-23
Packaged: 2017-10-10 18:32:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/102791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellydash/pseuds/ellydash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scottie will recreate her out of suit and skin and sheen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Second Chance

_I want you to love me. If I let you change me, will that do it? If I do what you tell me, will you love me? _

Scottie doesn’t touch her.

Judy watches him. They’re dissecting steaks at Ernie’s, or walking to the eight-o’-clock show at the Coronet, or on a stroll in Golden Gate Park; through all this, she watches him, looks for any sign on his face that he wants her as much as she wants him. _What’s wrong with him?_ she wonders. _What’s wrong with me?_

She knows, even as she asks herself these questions: _I am not Madeleine._

“I’m Judy,” she says to Scottie, over Ghirardelli sundaes one unusually warm evening. “Salina, Kansas – former shopgirl – currently companion to one Mr. John Ferguson, Scottie to his friends.”

The corners of his mouth wrinkle, and she could kick herself for being so obvious. For rambling.

“I know who you are,” he replies, gently, and wipes her mouth with a napkin. “Put your hair back, will you? Off your face. It’s such a pretty face.”

“Kiss me first? A real show-stopper.”

“Not here, Judy.” He draws his hand away from her mouth, and that troubled look dances back into his eyes.

Madeleine, she knows, would never have asked to be kissed in public.

(She leaves her hair down.)

*

_We'd just see a lot of each other as friends, and you'd ‘take care of me’? Because I remind you of someone? That's not very complimentary. And nothing would – happen? That's not very complimentary, either. _

Judy remembers the way Scottie held Madeleine, how his hands gripped her tightly, how his kiss felt like being eaten up in the way good girls weren’t supposed to be consumed. Scottie does not kiss Judy, but his hands tremble as he says good night to her at her door, and he curls his long fingers into fists.

She wonders what would happen if she grabbed him, pulled him inside, said _Scottie please I need you_. This plays out in two scenes, side by side: in one, she is Judy, and Scottie jumps away from her as if she’s fire and he’s flint; in the other, she is Madeleine and he gasps, grabs her, one hand cupping her tightly bound hair, the other spanning her waist, and jerks her to him.

“Good night, Scottie,” Judy says. She touches his lips with a finger, pulls the lower lip down slightly. She feels the edge of his tongue against her skin, and now she’s the one who begins to shake.

Scottie steps back, turns away from her, nearly running down the hallway.

*

_Is that what I'm here for? To make you feel that you're with someone that's dead? _

She’s suffused with a growing sense of horror.

Scottie takes her to where he fished Madeleine out of the bay, at Fort Point. It’s a clear day, cold but brilliant, and she shivers, burrowing into his angular frame.

“Why am I here?” she asks him.

“Oh, I thought you’d like the view of the bridge. Not many people come out here.”

“Lots of suicides,” she says, before she can stop herself.

Scottie looks at her, sharply. “Yes.”

“Did you take her out here? Madeleine?”

At the intrusion of that name into the conversation, he shudders, noticeably, and looks at the murky, trembling water, slapping against the rocks.

She curls her arm about his waist, pulling him against her.

*

_Now we’re going to buy you some clothes._

He chooses a suit for her with ruthless precision, ordering shopgirls about like he’s General MacArthur on a crucial campaign in the Pacific. Judy understands what’s happening, can see it as clearly as she sees her hands in front of her – nails now manicured in the way Madeleine’s nails were – Scottie will recreate her out of suit and skin and sheen. He’ll bring the ghost back to life.

When he asks her to change her hair for him, dye it (_back_) to platinum blonde, she protests feebly, and he dismisses her cries with _oh Judy, it can’t matter to you_.

She’s terrified of Madeleine, but she’s even more terrified of losing Scottie – and little Judy Barton from Salina, Kansas could never keep a guy like Scottie around. Without Scottie, she’s left alone in her dingy apartment, in her dingy life, and maybe becoming Madeleine again will give them both the escape they need.

_Put your hair back – it should be back from the face, in a bun. I told them – I told you._

Judy does, and when he sees her emerge from her apartment bathroom, Madeleine reborn, she comes to him and he kisses her in the way she’s wanted to be kissed since Madeleine died – eaten from the outside in, consumed.

She moves her hips against his trouser fronts, testing, and is rewarded with his groan.

“You don’t have to close your eyes,” she says. “Look at me.”

He does, blue eyes wide and disbelieving. “My God, it’s uncanny. It’s perfect. You could be her twin sister.”

“How would she tell you to love her?” Judy asks, undeterred. “Madeleine. Would - ”

“I don’t – what do you mean?”

“Would she say – would she say ‘Make love to me, Scottie’? Or would you – did you imagine her using coarser words, whore’s words? What should I say?”

“Judy – ”

She puts her mouth to the skin just below his ear, licks it, nips it with her teeth. “What did you dream about, Scottie?”

He groans again. “Madeleine – she’d never use that kind of language - ”

“But you wanted her to – didn’t you?”

In answer, his hand slides up to cup her breast through the suit.

“Please,” she whispers, “fuck me.”

He stumbles against her, pushing her against the wall, and the hand holding her breast thrusts under her skirt – against her underclothes – and she cries out with the relief of being touched after so long, after being near him and never having him – “Please,” he says, “Judy, please, help me – ” She’s overwhelmed and shaken by his use of her name.

Judy begins to unbutton her skirt, and Scottie stops her. “No – leave that on. Just the – ” He blushes. “I want to – with you in this outfit. Please.”

She reaches down between their bodies, slowly, and unclips her stockings.

When it’s just the skirt between them, his hand’s back beneath it, his fingers – first one, then two – pushing into her, and she cries out, thrusting back against them.

“So – beautiful,” he says, into her hair. “Oh, God – you’re so – ”

“Say my name,” she gasps, clenching tightly around him.

“_Madeleine_ –”

Judy’s climax overwhelms her, and she’s dizzy, she’s falling, she’s lost.

*

_I need you - to be Madeleine for a while. Then, when it's done, we'll both be free. _


End file.
